I haven't weighed in on the US intervention in Libya so far because, although I'm against it, I didn't really feel strongly enough about it to chime in one way or another. My opposition comes mainly from the unclear goal of the mission (is it "narrowly focused on saving lives" as Obama said tonight or to overthrow Qaddafi?), a lack of trust in US intentions and the general belief that the unintended consequences of foreign military intervention seem ill equiped to successfully impact a civil war in a predictable way.
Watching Obama's speech on Libya tonight has moved me to share some thoughts. Unlike Phil, I found the speech to be infuriating. Tonight's speech was a case study in the exultation of American exceptionalism in complete disregard of the history and current policies of the United States, and it helped reveal the base hypocrisy of US foreign policy in the Middle East.
The main theme tonight was a time-tested one: America is too special and moral a country to not have intervened on behalf of the Libyan people. Obama repeatedly praised the "shining city upon a hill" throughout his speech:
For generations, the United States of America has played a unique role as an anchor of global security and advocate for human freedom.
and more dramatically:
To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and – more profoundly – our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different.
And towards the end Obama soothed, "because wherever people long to be free, they will find a friend in the United States."
I haven't wanted to attack the Libya intervention in the grounds that it is completely hypocritical, because honestly I understand that any government's policies are politically and economically driven and thus bound to be hypocritical, but tonight's celebration of American moral leadership pushed me over the edge. One might support the American attack on Libya, and I can understand the reasons you would, but please don't believe for a second that it had anything to do with "US values" or that the US is operating on "behalf of what's right." I also think it's an enormous stretch to claim, as Phil did, that the US is building an "international coalition around the principle of human rights in the Middle East." (to counter one only has to look at Bahrain, Yemen, Ivory Coast, etc.) I think the most favorable reading of the situation is the the US intervened on behalf of close allies in Europe who were frightened of a massive refugee crisis if Qaddafi began completely massacring his opponents. Rather than fighting in defense of human rights, it seems the US is yet again building an international coaltion to punish its enemies while ignoring the transgressions of its allies.
And of course there's Israel. Read this passage from tonight's speech and see if you can see the one small change I made:
Innocent people were targeted for killing. Hospitals and ambulances were attacked. Journalists were arrested, sexually assaulted, and killed. Supplies of food and fuel were choked off. The water for hundreds of thousands of people in [Gaza City] was shut off. Cities and towns were shelled, mosques destroyed, and apartment buildings reduced to rubble. Military jets and helicopter gunships were unleashed upon people who had no means to defend themselves against assault from the air.
The only part that I'm not sure is accurate is whether journalists were sexually assaulted in Gaza.
The bald faced hypocrisy of Obama's glorious speechifying, while continuing to provide complete diplomatic cover for Israel, is criminal. I see no reason to believe, as Phil wrote, that "Obama is conscious of [his speech's] Palestinian application." Actually, he might be conscious of it, but doesn't mean he will do a damn thing about it. When it comes to its allies, the US government is most interested in maintaining the status quo until it becomes untenable. This was the "hinge" that we saw in Egypt from the administrationt's perspective. It didn't involve the US embracing international law or the grievances of the Egyptian people, but instead it was the US understanding that Mubarak was out and that it had get aligned with the new power players in Egypt. When it comes to Israel/Palestine, the US is still all chips in (to the tune of $3 billion a year) on the side of Israel, and it doesn't seem that Obama's newfound appreciation for human rights will alter that ledger anytime soon (and that's why it's up to civil society to make the status quo untenable, but that's a different post).
Ironically, Obama offered the following warning tonight against inaction in the case of Libya, "The writ of the UN Security Council would have been shown to be little more than empty words, crippling its future credibility to uphold global peace and security." Strong stuff. It echoes very closely one of the warnings offered by the authors of the Goldstone Report on the danger of ignoring the need for accountability for the fighting during Operation Cast Lead, "To deny modes of accountability reinforces impunity, and tarnishes the credibility of the United Nation and of the international community.” So far, the Obama administration has done much more to tarnish the credibility of the international community than it has to uphold global peace and security. Tonight's speech may have tried to blur that reality, but the record speaks for itself.
Thank you. If the U.S. is a city on a hill, it is for the same reason that Israel tries to get all the hills in Palestine.
Nothing more needs to be said.
ditto
Yep. I’m with Adam on this one, Phil seems to just hang on to all the hope he felt toward this friendly speaking black guy.
Adams reaction was pitch perfect. If Obama had prosecuted the Bush war criminals, maybe it would be okay to talk about the great golden godly nation of America. But he didn’t close Guantanamo and didn’t really end any war.
Thanks for your strong words Adam.
On tonight’s news Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke of the need for U.S. intervention beyond this initial phase. His words brought back memories of the 1982-3 U.S. intervention in Somalia. A purely humanitarian mission, or so we were told, but it wasn’t long before the U.S. was meddling in local politics, choosing sides. After the Battle of Mogadishu in which 18 Americans and over a thousand Somalis were killed, the war became so unpopular that President Clinton ordered the withdrawal of American troops. Our government subsequently labeled Somalia a failed state, which seems to mean that American Special Forces can willy-nilly do whatever they want there. The lesson? There’s no such thing as a purely humanitarian U.S. military intervention in other people’s affairs.
yes, yes, yes and yes.
Both Phil and Adam are correct. Obama was allowed to intervene because Israel felt it had no skin in the Libya game. Obama’s knee-jerk reactions are always vetted by his Israel First consultants–his whole career wouldn’texist without them, from Penny Pritzker to Dennis Ross and Ram Immanuel and the godfather, Axlerod. His rhetorical American exceptionalism was delivered to America–a half hour short of US prime TV exposure. And his Cairo speech was delivered across the sea. Few Americans are even aware of the Goldstone report, or the Cairo Speech, or Rice’s lonely US UN veto. Or of what’s going on in places like Rwanda, or what happened in Kosovo, etc. As with Afghanistan, so it is with Libya. Obama’s laying the groundwork for his second term with the chattering classes. The rest of America will be focused primarily on jobs, foreclosures; the attempts by politicians to connect the economy with foreign policy will largely be lost on the masses.
Just remember that neither main political party saw or sees fit to cut other than a few comparative pennies out of our bloated Military budget–and there’s no Military Draft on the horizon. The next presidential campaign will be like watching American Idol. The contestants will all be bad although handled as best as possible by their professional partners, and the panel will cater to their feel of the audience while blowing fumes of independent criticism.
Compare Libya and Gaza, all you want Adam, and then tell me when the Libyan rebels began to fire missile at civilian opponents. Your refusal, your childish, ridiculous refusal to see Israel’s case at all blinds you to reality and makes you a supporters of madmen like Muammar Gaddafi.
I feel sorry for you.
No one feels sorry for you, and
your indignant phony posturing.
It’s annoying, plain and simple.
“Compare Libya and Gaza, all you want Adam, and then tell me when the Libyan rebels began to fire missile at civilian opponents.”
Hophmi, you really don’t deserve any consideration after that stupid comment, but I’m going to do you the favor of assuming you haven’t heard about the attacks Libyan rebels have made on innocent Africans.
link
So anyway, hophmi, does this mean it’s now okay for Qadaffi to slaughter innocent Libyans, just as it was obviously okay in your eyes for Israel to commit war crimes in Gaza? That does seem to be your reasoning, using the term loosely.
I used to feel helpless because my efforts (and all efforts) on behalf of Palestine had sio far (in 1980, 1990) come to naught.
Now I feel helpless because although a USA citizen, I can do nothing to correct the dreadful on-rolling juggernaut of the USA military empire, nor can I correct the dreadful (because it is so ignorant and uncaring about the really important problems facing the USA and humanity) oligarchic mechanism of governance of the USA (lack of democracy is not so bad; the people in the USA have been kept ignorant and are not all that wise, either — but to be ruled by such STUPID and UNCARING corporate interests is appalling).
I agree with Adam: whatever the USA does with its military (except to repel or prepare to repel actual invasion or attack, last seen here in 1940s) is likely to be evil.
Clean lies coming from behind very polished teeth. I barely saw Obama’s face while he ‘speeched’ at us: so transfixed I was by the unusually pristine flow of moral hubris.
Very sentimentally Hollywoodesue: you could hear the orchestral score highlighting the ‘heroic American values’ cliches peppered throughout the speech. Really I kept on thinking I was watching a slick 21st century Sidney Poitier performing.
Now I’d be laughing louder if this wasn’t such a very, very serious matter.
That Obama with Arab blood on his hands and standing there holding on to his Pulitzer Peace Prize, preaching at us about the necessity of ‘humanitarian’ intervention – I mean come on, not ALL of us were born yesterday! I mean can you say ‘Obama’ and the ‘Goldstone Report’ in the same sentence and not wanna puke from the hideous hypocrisy of it?! Can you really trust the ‘intentions’ of such a colossal hypocrite?
Our Libyan ‘interference’ is a sicko scam: now that we’re physically ‘inside’ the Libyan zone, pretending to hand over the reigns to NATO, just watch how we keep the pot of violence nicely stirred for the next few years: supporting the ‘rebels’ but not quite enough to give them immediate victory or victory in the near foreseeable future. We’ll give them victory when it suits us, of course.
Also, I really reckon Obama will NOT NEVER EVER touch the Palestine issue not even with a ten million foot pole. It’s profound folly to connect anything he says about the mideast to genuine justice for the Palestinians.
Yes the mideast is changing/has changed – but Obama and the West will never change – they’ll adapt but never change… till there’s no more oil in the mideast.
This is the remorseless simple truth that they continue to cynically obscure.
Everything the corpo-imperialist powers (disguised as western democracies), EVERYTHING they do till oil runs out is gonna be hubris that begets more hubris that begets more death, mostly of the Arab kind.
Real moral Americans should be rising against this: that our successive governments combined have killed millions of Arabs just so we can have the cheapest oil in our gas tanks. They’ve never been able to come up with a better idea/solution for our energy crisis than the mass slaughter of Arab civilians: men, women and children – and it continues.
No amount of presidential ‘moral’ speeches can change this fact.
Every gallon of gas in your tank has a coupla drops of Arab blood in it. Remember this next time you’re at the gas pump.
I agree that one need look no farther than how Obama handled the Goldstone Report to see him for what he really is.
and now these cuts in social programs are going to do in americans (from hunger, homelessness, lack of health care, lack of heating fuel), so there’ll be a drop or two of american blood as well.
Adam, I share your repulsion by Obama’s patronizing attempt at reframing the intervention.
This paragraph summarizes the subject well:
And as I read that, I couldn’t help but reflect on platitudes espoused by many a US president in recent decades. Obama’s speech did not offer anything refreshing or new in that respect. Instead, it reaffirmed American hypocrisy vis-a-vis foreign policy.
RE: “Cairo 2 part II” – Adam Horowitz
MY COMMENT: Well stated! Put me down as a skeptic. No Weissglossian exuberance here!
Obama tries to avoid is looking like the war president. He spoke in the university setting, went on 1/2 hour before prime time, but he speech was completely reminiscent of Bush in his reasons to invade Iraq.
Just further evidence that his presidential campaign branding efforts, were completely for show and allure to the left.
Some of his points:
The Libyans asked us for help (so did the Iraqi’s)
We’re preventing a tyrant from killing more Libyan’s (iraq again…)
Were doing this because of our commitment to democracy (:(… )
The military action will not be too expensive…
Now, Obama is in NYC at two DNC fundraising events today.
The writ of the UN Security Council would have been shown to be little more than empty words, crippling its future credibility to uphold global peace and security.
Good one, O’Bomber. No one has done more to cripple the UN’s credibility than you, not able even to vote for the resolution you claim to approve.
Perhaps Obama was also listening to European advocates concerned about
waves of Libya refugees fleeing to France & Italy especially. And, as Gates noted recently, the potential wave of refugees from Libya could have destabilized the new fledgling Tunisia and Egypt. Are those not rational concerns to throw in the decision hopper? The refugee ripple effect doubled? That’s a reason why France was so damn fast to lead that likely goes beyond
the French leader’s wish to regain his lost political credibility? I don’t think Libya’s oil was much of a factor, even considering a more limited SA ability to make up oil loss differential.
Citizen: – “That’s a reason why France was so damn fast to lead that likely goes beyond the French leader’s wish to regain his lost political credibility? I don’t think Libya’s oil was much of a factor, “
Oh hell – that’s ridiculously childishly naïve.
seriously.
Have you people learned nothing while observing the last 10 years of US-lead wars in Muslim countries?
Even Dem Congressman Dennis Kuncinich gets it – even if many here @MW do not:
On 27 March 2011, Kucinich wrote about Franco-British war games and Libya (link to guardian.co.uk):
According to Kucinich:
On 2 November 2010 France and Great Britain signed a mutual defence treaty.
This was to lead to “Southern Mistral” (link to southern-mistral.cdaoa.fr), a series of war games. Southern Mistral involved an air attack, called Southern Storm, against a dictatorship in a fictitious southern country called Southland.
The joint military air strike ‘Games’ were authorised by a pretend United Nations Security Council Resolution.The “Composite Air Operations” were planned for the period of 21-25 March, 2011.
On 20 March, 2011, the USA joined France and Great Britain in an air attack on Libya.
Were the Libyan opposition told about the existence of Southern Mistral/Southern Storm? Could this be what has encouraged them to violence?
Who knows? it cannot be conclusively proven but you’d have to be a fool to think that either the French, the British or the US would not do so if they wanted to.
As Winston Churchill famously said: “Truth is the first casualty of War” – It’s amazing how many people simply forget that, time and time again
Libya was attacked, we have been told, because Gaddaffi allegedly had killed 6,000 of his own people. But is this true?
Even if it were true, it is a certainty that the Military Forces of which Obama is Commander-In-Chief are responsible for far far more deaths in his short reign than Ghaddiffi is in his long reign – Obama is responsible for bombing at least 5 separate nations since coming to power. The British alone have easily killed 6 thousand people since the start of the Afghanistan & Iraq Wars
And people here actually really think that the reason he, and the British and the French, are bombing Libya is to save human lives??
REALLY?
How is it possible for anyone to be that deluded?
Anyone thinking that the bombing of Libya has anything to do with Humanitarian issues needs their head examined
Adam,
You are spot on on this one. The man is an empty suit with no moral compass; his highest value is reelection. His actions on Libya stemmed from the high ratings the story was getting, all the lofty justifications were added after the decision to follow the ratings.
Having been a strong supporter of him, I am now so disallusioned and angered that I cannot even watch his speeches. All the lofty ideals in his books and pre and post election speeches counted for naught. Nothing more than rhetoric aimed at election and now reelection.
Support for war in Libya depends on the predictable speech that Obama’s handlers wrote for him? An acceptable speech still wouldn’t change the fact that a civil war in Libya is no business of the U.S.
Is the war in the best economic interests of U.S. taxpayers? Will the price of oil even go down if everything goes as planned? I’m sure the usual profiteers stand to benefit, but I’m not sure that the taxpayers and soldiers will gain much from the experience.
With all the reasons given for wavering support, it is so obvious that few people feel affected by the situation. I’d bet that most people who don’t even think of the American kids being sent to war would also consider a fist-fight barbaric. War is insane, and normal people don’t collect fingers and skulls or take pictures with the corpses of enemies. Why send fellow Americans into such situations? Is there any compassion for these people?
“I think the most favorable reading of the situation is the the US intervened on behalf of close allies in Europe who were frightened of a massive refugee crisis IF Qaddafi began COMPLETELY MASSACRING HIS OPPONENTS.” (my emphasis added)
Adam, there is no “if” here. No one who has paid attention to Qaddafi’s career as “brother leader” doubts that his perceived enemies in Libya would be, and are being, massacred for one purpose: retaining power for himself and his family.
Whatever Obama’s political motives in (finally) intervening on behalf of the revolutionaries, he did the right thing – up to this point, at least. It has been a humanitarian mission, not an imperialistic one.
Philip was correct (in “Cairo 2″) in pointing out that a massive popular movement is now underway in Arab lands and that this is a significant turn in world history. Without doubt, the Arab people’s awakening will have important repercussions for I/P. The fact that Obama has intervened to protect millions of Libyans from their murderous rulers makes it more – not less – likely that someday he or another American president will find the balls to step in and protect the Palestinians as they are faced with extermination by the Israelis.
Also, I wish people on this website would stop saying or implying that Obama is personally responsible for American foreign policy all the way back to the 18th Century.
THOMSONRUTHERFORD- “The fact that Obama has intervened to protect millions of Libyans from their murderous rulers….”
I don’t know if Mondoweiss gives an award for outrageous statements, but if they do, you get my vote! For the record, in over two years in office, Obama is directly and indirectly responsible for more carnage than Gaddafi can claim in his forty years of rule. If we through in the toll extracted by neo-liberal globalization (estimated at 40 million excess deaths per year), Gaddafi is small beer compared to empire.
Sir, “for the record”, I am not merely against neo-liberalism, I am against capitalism itself.
As for “outrageous statements”, you don’t do so badly yourself. You blame Obama (not my hero) for an American empire that he did next to nothing to help create. Obama should be held accountable for some of those unnecessary deaths in Afghanistan, but these certainly cannot compare with what Qaddafi has been able to achieve of his own direct volition in 42 years within the boundaries of his own country. But if you are an admirer of the “brother leader”, I’m sorry I ruffled your feathers.
THOMPSON RUTHERFORD- You claim to be against neo-liberalism and “capitalism itself,” yet support an imperial intervention designed to advance both of these under the pretext of humanitarianism. And while Obama didn’t create the empire, he has for over two years now held a sufficiently high position within empire to be held accountable for the crimes of empire, including initiating this war, expanding the Afpak war, extending the Iraq war, supporting Israeli aggression, and promoting neo-liberal globalization. True, he has just been “following orders” from Wall Street, but that is no excuse! The empire has a long and consistent history of mass-murder, torture, destabilization, and geo-strategic power seeking, always justified by some outrageous pretext. Libya is imperial business as usual, nothing more.
“Libya is imperial business as usual, nothing more.”
This part of your comment is where we differ. I believe in the Arab Spring, and the coalition actions so far in Libya have been (almost) what is required to help it stagger on, whatever the motives of the bad actors in the White House.
Again, though, so sorry I pee’ed on your flowerbed.
Thank you. Pa’ que todos sepan: Chespirito agrees very strongly with Adam on this.
The template for this act of war in most reasonable heads is Kosovo. That act of war seemed like a no-brainer at the time, and is vaguely remembered as a smashing success. A closer look reveals intensified slaughter of civilians on the ground after bombing started, followed by over 200,000 Serbs and Roma ethnically cleansed. The “100,000 unaccounted-for Kosovars” that State spokesman Jamie Rubin announced in the build-up turned out to be the wildest of exaggerations.
Libya is not by no means a perfect analogy, yet I expect hindsight to show ten years from now that our act of war had the effect of pouring gasoline on the fire rather than putting out the flames.
I would propose some lucidity on the hypocrisy and inconsistency arguments.
Should a Dollar not be offered to a homeless person on the street because the same cannot be done for all the other homeless people on the planet? Can we not come to the help of someone being physically brutalized in public lest we vow to do the same for everyone else we ever witness being victimized, regardless of the risk, cost, and circumstances? Must I adopt a doctrine of personal conduct that requires me to either always or never behave in a prescribed manner? I don’t think so. I do what I can, when I can, and only to the extent that I can, while still being responsible to myself, my family, and those who depend on me.
I’m sorry we did nothing about Rwanda, I’m glad we’re doing something in Libya, and I’m sorry we can’t do anything about Bahrain. And I am neither hypocritical nor inconsistent, I just reject lazy binary thinking.
Well stated, Plowshare.
Here we go with a repetitive quote –
“It becomes apparent that the powerful, those who make the rules, insist on legality merely to preserve the power relations that serve them or to maintain their occupation and colonialism.”
GAZA: THE LOGIC OF COLONIAL POWER
Need I say more?